QUOTE OF THE WEEK"The outstanding objection to the
modern dance is that it is immodest and
lacking in grace. It is not based on the natural and harmless instinct for
rhythm, but on a craving for abnormal excitement. And what is it leading
to? The dance in its process of degradation has passed from slight
impropriety to indecency, and now threatens to become brazenly shameless."

--Hobart College Herald1920s

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THIS WEEK'S NEWS ï ï ï ï

LOCATION CHANGE!LOCATION CHANGE!LOCATION CHANGE!

CLASSES ON THIS COMING
MONDAY NIGHT, FEB. 25TH WILL BE AT:KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS
IN PLAYA DEL RAY!!!(did we mention February
25th is Rusty's birthday?)

The Birthday Girl age 4

We wanted to announce this in advance to
give everyone plenty of time to mark their calendars, leave themselves
little messages, or program their PDAs in an effort to minimize the number
of people who will still show up at the desolate and lonely Neptunian
Woman's Club when no other swing dancers will be there! For one night
only, Monday, February 25th (Rusty's birthday....did we happen to mention
that?), classes will move over to the Knights of Columbus hall in Playa
Del Ray, only two doors away from the Elk's Lodge where we have the Rhythm
Club every week -- same parking lot! So please do make whatever notes
you need to to remind yourself of this change!!! See you there!

THIS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY
23RD 2002!!!TAP DANCE AND LINDY STYLING
WORKSHOP!!!

Jeni LeGon & Bill Robinson

For those of you who are new to us, we
often hold workshops each month, and February is no exception! We
are excited to bring you a terrific two-hour workshop in Tap Dance and
Lindy Styling! The first half of the workshop, from 4pm-5pm, is devoted
to teaching lindy hoppers some of the fundamentals of the art of tap dancing.
In the course of the hour, you will learn an entire tap routine!!!
(Sorry, no tap shoes allowed on the floor... just wear hard-soled shoes,
really anything will do...)

The second part of the workshop, from 5pm-6pm,
is for lindy styling, the perfect place to learn some great new footwork
and movement to add to your swing dancing! The cost for the workshop
is $15 per class or $25 for the entire event...a great bargain!!!
Pick up one of the registration flyers at any of our events and sign up
soon, or sign up online at our website at http://swingshiftontap.com/WORKSHOPS/02-02-23.htm

END OF SERIES PARTY THIS
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24TH!!!FEATURING VIDEOS OF RUSTY
AND PETERWHEN THEY WERE BEGINNER
DANCERS!

It's hard to believe, but another terrific
four-week series of classes have come and gone at Lindy By The Sea.
But this means that it's time for another PARTY! At the end of every
series of classes, we have a special Sunday night dance and throw open
the doors to everyone: students, friends, family, passing strangers...anybody!
This Sunday is no exception, with another three solid hours of dancing,
music and socializing.

As an extra-special added feature, there
will be a special video screening. This will feature two video clips
of your own swing dance instructors -- from back in the days when they
were not-so-spectacular dancers! The clip of Rusty is from when she
was a little girl, unhappily doing a ballet recital (when she REALLY wanted
to be in the tap number! No surprises there...) The clip of
Peter is from when he had been swing dancing for a year-and-a-half already,
and all we can say is that it clearly demonstrates the downside to learning
WITHOUT classes...yikes!

So make sure to plan on attending our End
Of Series Party this coming Sunday, from 7:00pm until 10:00pm. Remember
that it is FREE and open to all ages, and is at the Neptunian Woman's Club
at 920 Highland Avenue in Manhattan Beach. For more details, click
on http://www.swingshiftontap.com/lbseos.htm
!

NEW PICTURES ADDED TO
OUR WEBSITE!!!CHECK THEM OUT!!!

If you haven't checked out our website
recently, here's a great excuse: we've added a new page of pictures to
the scrapbook! Wander over there and have a look: there's pictures
from Valentines Day at the Rhythm Club (courtesy of Chris Johnson), photos
of the Performance Class in rehearsals, and even some of Michael D'Angelo's
birthday bash at LindyGroove! We've worked really hard to keep this
scrapbook up-to-date, and we think it looks pretty darned terrific.
Tell us what you think! It's located at http://www.swingshiftontap.com/scrapbook%2017/scrapbook17.htm
!

HERE'S SOMETHING INTERESTING...AND IT'S ABOUT TIME!

We were recently informed by Rusty's dad
about a fascinating, never-to-be-repeated event in the history of time-keeping.
He wrote:

As the clock ticks over from
8:01PM on Wednesday, February 20th, 2002, time will (for sixty seconds
only) read in perfect symmetry. To be more precise: 20:02, 20/02, 2002.

It is an event which has only ever happened
once before, and is something which will never be repeated. The last occasion
that time read in such a symmetrical pattern was long before the days of
the digital watch (or the 24-hour clock): 10:01AM, on January 10, 1001.
And because the clock only goes up to 23.59, it is something that will
never happen again.

As it happens, this will be at the beginning
of the night at the Rhythm Club! We tend to get a little distracted
with all the details of keeping the night running, so if it seems as though
we are going to miss this moment, somebody please come running out to remind
us!!! (And special thanks to Harrison Frank for bringing this to
our attention!)

For those of you who were unable to attend
last Saturday night's Satin Ballroom in Culver City, all we can say is...you
missed out! Rusty and Peter were the special guest instructors this
time around, teaching a class of about five hundred (500????!!!) how to
do the basics of swing dancing. The class was lively and enthusiastic,
and Rusty and Peter had a ball as usual!!

Then the live music began with The Bill
Elliott Swing Orchestra playing away with their classy brand of hard-swingin'
sounds. Bill's band was in fine form, playing such favorites as "Begin
the Beguine", "Struttin' With Kate", and "When We Dance", and he introduced
some new favorites for us, "The Sergeant Was Shy," "Roll 'Em," and "Rhythm
Riff". Bill's Lucky Stars were on hand to provide the silky smooth
vocal harmonies with John O'Campo, Michael Lescault, Royce Reynolds and
Royce's lovely wife Diane filling in for Cassie Miller who is currently
on tour in Greece.

The cast of "Mildred" taking a well-deserved bow!

At the top of the second set, none other
than the inimitable Maxwell DeMille took to the stage to inform the crowd
of the great performance coming their way! Moments later, he introduced
"Mildred, Won't You Behave?" and Bill's band took off like a rocket!
The Jitterbugs (from the cast of "Swingin' The Century -- The Big Band
Show...more on that show at http://www.swingshow.com/
) came onto the floor and knocked the crowd dead with their showstopping
performance!!! And for everyone who was on pins and needles last
week regarding the mystery of "Who's Mildred", we're happy to let you know
that it was none other that Rusty Frank herself, decked out in her big
plaid bow and swingin' away!!! Peter marvelously played the "icky",
and dragged Rusty through "bad dancing" for nearly the entire song.
She and Peter had a ball dancing for everyone and the Jitterbugs were absolutely
brilliant themselves! All in all, the number went over BIG and the
crowd roared at it's conclusion!

As if that weren't enough, there were still
two more hours of music and dancing left, and the preliminary tally from
the folks at the Satin Ballroom indicate that there were nearly TWELVE
HUNDRED (1,200!!!) dancers in attendance that night! The energy of
having that many people lindy hopping in one place is just unbelievable,
and if you missed this one, make sure you don't miss the next one!

It's time for another swingin' night at
the Rhythm Club, and this week promises at least THREE fun birthdays to
celebrate: Scott McNabb, Dietmar Wendelin, and Charmay Wilson!
Scott and Charmay have been an integral part of our swing community for
a long time now. Dietmar is one of our newer friends (all the way
from Austria), and we are thrilled to have him with us. We hope that
you all will come down and help us to celebrate these special friends with
us. And if you know of any other birthdays this week, please let
us know so we can get them in on the fun as well!

So come down and spend an evening among
friends at the Rhythm Club, this Wednesday night. We've got some
of the best DJ'ed swing music anywhere and a reputation for being the friendliest
club in Southern California! Add a 2,800 square foot dancefloor and
some pretty powerful air conditioning, loads of parking and a mere $6 cover
charge and you've got yourself a terrific evening. And it's open
to ALL AGES!!!

SAVOY BALLROOM.COM -- It was known as "The
Home of Happy Feet" and we can look to it's memory for inspiration as the
place where Lindy Hopping was born. Opened in 1926, the Savoy Ballroom
in uptown New York City was THE place for bands to play in the swing era.
If you could make the dancers there happy, you knew you had made it.
Every major band played that room, on either of the twin, side-by-side
bandstands (so that as one band was finishing, the other band could play
the song with them and allow the first band to exit without stopping the
flow of music!) and the finest Lindy Hop performance team of all time came
from the Savoy: Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

Now, British Lindy Hop enthusiast and historian
Terry Monaghan has created a wonderful site full of pictures and anecdotes
about the ballroom and the dancers who came from it. We hope you'll
all enjoy browsing around this beautiful website, and keep checking back
on it, since it is still a work in progress! You can find all this
fun at http://www.savoyballroom.com/
!

*Wondering what the heck
a "gate" is? This was a phrase popularized by 1940's comedian, Jerry
Colonna, who would holler it out every time he was introduced on the Bob
Hope radio program. It was a friendly salutation to a swing cat (dancer
or swing music enthusiast).